You are excited for tomorrow — you’ve trained for several months, leading to tomorrow’s big event. Your training has been consistent, but your performance level has been stuck at a lower level. Given your commitment to training, you are frustrated at your current performance level; why have you not been performing at a higher level? You wake up the next morning, feeling nervous. Is today the day you continue to be frustrated and perform a lower level? Or, will you break through your performance plateau?
Unfortunately, at the big event you did not break through your performance plateau; instead, you performed at your lower level. Performing at a lower level than your expected performance level brings many negative emotions: Sadness, frustration, disgust, and anger. You have invested time, money, and part of your identity into training and performance, but have continued to perform at a lower-than-expected level. What can you do to break through your performance plateau? This article describes two approaches: One approach focuses on performance states; the other approach is about structuring practice. By applying these two approaches, you will break through your performance plateau to perform at higher levels.
Note: As you read this article, please think about something you are currently performing. Anytime you see the words “event” or “performance,” think about your specific performance. Your performance could be a competing in a triathlon, delivering a work presentation, creating a culinary experience, or singing in a choir. This article is written for any performance, but you will get more out of the article by thinking about the information in the context of your performance.
Performance Plateaus
A definition of a performance plateau is “a consistent level of performance in a given event for an extended amount of time.” If you are maximizing your ability and performing at a high level, a performance plateau is good — you are highly achieving! However, issues can occur when you feel you are not performing to your expected level. You begin to dread the event, having feelings of anxiety, fear, and anger. These feelings can trap you in a vicious downwards cycle, causing you to stay stuck in a performance plateau — never getting to the level of performance you feel capable of reaching.
Having a performance plateau that continues for a long time may cause severe negative consequences: If the event is part of your career, you may be forced to shift careers; if the event is part of your hobby, you may quit the hobby; if the event is a forced part of your life, you may take drastic action — to the detriment of your loved ones — to avoid the event. With the possibility of profound negative consequences, getting out of less-than-expected performance plateaus is important. Life should be an upward cycle, breaking through performance plateaus to reach higher performance levels.
Brain Systems and Performance States
Brain Systems
In the book Hardwiring Happiness, Rick Hanson describes three brain systems. Each brain system has a “core need” and an “operating system;” this table compares the brain systems, core needs, and operating systems:
![Table of information in Hardwiring Happiness [Created by the author]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/00f27b_1de242d65f5f416bba3fb6c45bb2a0da~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_616,h_130,al_c,q_85,enc_avif,quality_auto/00f27b_1de242d65f5f416bba3fb6c45bb2a0da~mv2.png)
When you feel the core needs of safety, satisfaction, and connection are not met, you move through the world in Reactive Mode. The Reactive Mode is the unsafe mode: Life’s challenges become overwhelming, so your mind becomes fearful, unsatisfied, and disconnected. This leads to the fight/flight/freeze response, plus these characteristics:
The brain stem has a feeling being unsafe and fearful;
The subcortex has a feeling of dissatisfaction and scarcity;
The cortex has a feeling of disconnection and heartache; and,
Learning from experiences is very difficult.
When you feel the core needs of safety, satisfaction, and connection are met, you move through the world in Responsive Mode. The Responsive Mode is the safe mode: You still face life’s challenges with potential threats, loss, or rejection, but you rise to meet the challenges and learn from your experiences. Living in the Responsive Mode has these characteristics:
The brain stem has a feeling of safety and peace;
The subcortex has a feeling of satisfaction and contentment;
The cortex has a feeling of connection and love; and,
Learning from experiences is easier.
Performance States
The ideas of Reactive Mode and Responsive Mode can be extended to the way you perform: One is the Reactive Performance State; the other is the Responsive Performance State. Performing in the Reactive Performance State is a fearful, isolating experience. Because you have feelings of fear, scarcity, and heartache, challenges in the performance are perceived at threats. These threats cause your muscles to tighten and focus to narrow, making you miss important cues — leading to a lower level of performance. Your recollection of the performance is hazy, causing the experiences in the performance to impede your learning.
In contrast, performing in the Responsive Performance State is a safe, flowing experience [1]. Because you have feelings of peace, contentment, and love, challenges in the performance are perceived as opportunities. These opportunities cause your muscles to flow and focus to expand, helping you take in important information and use the information in the right way — leading to a higher level of performance. Your recollection of the performance is clear, allowing the experiences in the performance to enhance your learning.
Structuring Practice
As discussed in a previous article, learning happens as your senses get information and organize the information into a model for a concept. A definition of a model for a concept is “a set of organized schemata for a concept that can be used to explain parts of the concept or predict outcomes from the concept.” As you create more complex and interrelated conceptual models, you are learning about the parts of a concept and the applications for a concept. This leads to a definition for learning: “Learning is the process of creating, modifying, linking, and applying models for concepts.” With NO practice, there is NO learning — so learning effectively requires large amounts of practice.
So, how do you structure a practice session to maximize learning? Researchers have outlined several tactics:
Schedule practice to have spacing and interleaving of models for concepts.
Practice should force you out of your comfort zone, making you use maximum effort.
Get feedback on the practice quickly, making time to reflect on the feedback.
Consistently using these tactics during a practice session — and series of practice sessions — helps you learn faster and more effectively, leading to better performance.
Scheduling Practice for Spacing and Interleaving Concepts
Every performance contains many different models for concepts; these models for concepts contain the knowledge and skills for a concept. To succeed in a performance, you must practice the individual models for concepts. A common way to practice the models for concepts is to do the same action over and over again; this is known as blocked practice. Unfortunately, blocked practice is a suboptimal way to practice once you have reached a certain level of competence. Blocked practice gives you some ability in a narrow set of knowledge or skills, but that ability falls apart when you are presented with a new situation.
The much better way to practice is by scheduling spacing and interleaving of models for concepts. The term spacing means that you have some amount of time between practicing the same model for a concept. The term interleaving means that you mix the models for concepts so that the same model for a concept is never practiced back-to-back. For example, consider four models for concepts: A, B, C, and D. Each of the four models for concepts will be practiced four times:
Spaced and Interleaved Practice (Simple): ABCD ABCD ABCD ABCD
Spaced and Interleaved Practice (Complex): ABCD BCDA CDAB DABC
Spaced and interleaved practice can range from a simple, repeating pattern to a complex, repeating pattern, or be completely random. Using different models for concepts during the practice makes you slow down, causing you to consider the parts of each model for a concept individually and the connections between models for concepts. Paradoxically, going more slowly through a practice session increases your learning rate — allowing you to make the most of every practice session.
Practice Beyond Your Comfort Zone
Practicing a little beyond your comfort zone is an essential part of practice — this one part of Anders Ericsson’s deliberate practice, discussed more fully in the book Peak. Although staying in your comfort zone by only doing actions you know you can do may feel good, there is little-to-no learning happening; your models for concepts are not being used in new ways, so there is no new learning. When you go a little beyond your comfort zone to try something you are unsure you can do, this causes you to learn: Your existing models for concepts are modified or linked in new ways, giving you new ways to apply the models for concepts.
To go a little beyond your comfort zone, use physical skills or combine knowledge in new ways — this allows you to see if your skills and knowledge work in the new situation. Another way to go beyond your comfort zone is to simulate the practice performance under similar conditions to the real performance. This method helps you experience the feelings that will happen during the performance, making you more comfortable with the feelings. As you become more comfortable with the feelings within a performance, you can more easily understand how the feelings affect your body and mind — helping you create a plan to access the Responsive Performance State during the real performance.
Going a little beyond your comfort zone will feel uncomfortable, but the uncomfortable feelings provide an opportunity. As Steve Magness says in an article titled Growth Comes From Discomfort, “That feeling of discomfort isn’t something to shy away from, it’s a signal to explore it deeper. It highlights that there is an opportunity to address something we might not be the best at. As we age and gain expertise it’s tempting to follow the easy path, be who we are, and play to our strengths. But growth lies in getting to know discomfort.” Discomfort is part of a performance plateau; the question becomes, Will you allow the discomfort to make you angry, or will you use the discomfort to help you grow?
Get Feedback Quickly — and Reflect on Feedback
To understand how well your models for concepts work in a given situation, you must apply the models for concepts and see the results. The process of application and feedback is called self-testing; self-testing is a crucial aspect of high-quality practice. Self-testing should be in conditions that mimic the real performance, with feedback on the self-testing happening quickly. By having feedback occur quickly, you can modify your models for concepts and self-test again. Repeating the pattern throughout a single or set of training sessions allows you to understand your ability with the performance, showing you which models for concepts need strengthening.
Every performance requires many models for concepts, so self-testing can happen at several levels: The individual models for concepts; small groups of models for concepts; and, every model for a concept in the performance. Each level of self-testing is important because limited ability at one level will cause issues at other levels. In addition, you need to think about the way models for concepts link together; sometimes models for concepts work differently by themselves than when they are linked with other models for concepts. Taking time to think about the models for concepts of each level for a performance is critical — learning happens when you practice AND reflect. Reflection strengthens the individual models for concepts and links between models for concepts, leading to a higher level of performance.
Making Connections: Brain Systems, Practice, and Performance
The goal when performing any event is to be in the Responsive Performance State — feeling peace, contentment, and love [2]. Even though the performance may be challenging and outcome uncertain, feelings of peace, contentment, and love allow you to be present and adapt to the circumstances of the performance. These feelings also allow you to flow freely, tapping into every set of knowledge and skills in the performance.
Getting into the Responsive Performance State can be tricky; here are some ideas to help move you into this state:
Have a group of people that — no matter the outcome of the performance — will love you for who you are as a whole person [3].
Before, during, and after the performance, be grateful for the opportunity to perform.
Before the performance, visualize and accept the challenges; see yourself as open to challenges, then meeting these challenges with your knowledge and skills.
These ideas — and other ideas that work for you — help you get into the Responsive Performance State, allowing you to perform at your best.
As you practice by using spacing and interleaving, going beyond your comfort zone, and getting feedback quickly with reflection, you will develop expertise for your event. Knowing you have expertise creates confidence, allowing you to enter the event in “safe mode” — giving you another reason to move into the Responsive Performance State. In addition, having confidence allows you to see challenges as opportunities; instead of saying “Oh no!” your confidence lets you say “Go get it!”
A Personal Example: Getting Better at Golf
To get better at golf, I used the ideas of performance states and structured practice for maximum learning. I have been playing golf off and on for the past 25 years, but I did not start taking the game seriously until four years ago. I finished my doctorate in education, so I wanted a new hobby; the hobby needed to be athletic, social, challenging, and outdoors. Golf fulfills those requirements, so I began playing the game more seriously — falling in love with the game.
As I began to play the game more often, I wanted to get better. Golf is an incredibly challenging sport: Power for the swing comes from rotation; every shot during a round is different; and, slight changes when striking the ball with the club results in huge changes to where the ball lands. I tried to teach myself for a while but my learning was slow; to improve my learning, I needed to work with a coach. I found a great coach in late 2020, working on the technical aspects of my swing. The coach made some changes to my swing, so I needed to practice regularly to ingrain the changes.
I structured my practice in two parts: The first part as a warmup, hitting different types of shots with five clubs; the second part as self-testing, playing a course in my mind. For the self-testing session, I used a metric called “Intended Shot Percentage” — this metric is the number shots that did what I intended divided by the total number of shots, expressed as a percentage. I tracked the Intended Shot Percentage across each session, which showed how I was (or was not) progressing; the goal for each session was 100%.
The graph below shows the data for (roughly) 2,200 shots across 73 practice sessions in 2021:
There are some interesting trends in the data:
Sessions 1 through 25 had a mean of 67%, with a high variance — some days were good and others a struggle.
Sessions 26 through 53 had a mean of 66%, but more bad sessions than good — I had difficulty getting over 70%, so this felt like a performance plateau.
Sessions 54 through 73 had a mean of 78%, with a much tighter variance! Session 54 happened in early October, so most of the year had passed before I broke through the performance plateau.
How did I break through my performance plateau? One reason is that I committed to getting better, so I embraced the grind of practicing. Showing up session after session is important; I would have never reached a higher level of Intended Shot Percentage without persevering through the early (bad) sessions. Even if the overall percentage was bad, I could still find some great shots during the session; these shots fueled my desire to progress. I wholeheartedly agree with this quote from Jason Fried: “I’ve also discovered there’s another dimension that unlocks with practice: feeling better doing the thing you are learning” (emphasis in the original quote). Jason’s practice was with a guitar, but the quote applies to any practice; practicing session after session changes the way you feel about what you are practicing, leading you to learn more from each practice session.
Another reason I broke through my performance plateau is related to the structure of my practice sessions: Instead of using blocked practice of one model for a concept when hitting a shot, I used spacing and interleaving of many different models for concepts for hitting a shot. A golf swing looks similar for different shots, but hitting the ball with a left curve, straight, or right curve AND high flight, medium flight, or low flight — or some combination! — requires slightly different models for concepts. Spacing and interleaving different models for concepts for hitting a shot simulates a real round of golf because every shot in a real round of golf is different. In addition, changing clubs, lies, and shot shapes for every swing made the practice challenging and pushed me out of my comfort zone, forcing me to work hard at hitting the intended shot. Structuring practice in this way made each session go slower and be more challenging, but persevering through the challenge and learning how to hit shots ultimately led to a performance plateau breakthrough.
A third reason I broke through my performance plateau is that I changed my mindset during the testing section of practice, going from reactive mode to responsive mode. Instead of getting mad at my performances — especially those under 60% — I got curious, using reflection as a tool to guide my progress. After each session I would reflect, using questions like these:
“What went poorly during the session?”
“What went well during the session?”
“If I was in a series of poor shots, how did I get out of the poor shots and hit a good one?”
“If I was in a flow of good shots, how did I stay in that mindset?”
“To keep improving, what else do I need to learn?”
By considering these questions session after session, I maximized my learning and had a performance plateau breakthrough.
Summary
Being stuck in a performance plateau feels terrible and can lead to negative outcomes in your career, hobby, or family. However, changing performance states and properly structuring practice can change the way you perform. Getting to the Responsive Performance State allows you to perform with feelings of peace, contentment, and love, accepting challenges as opportunities and succeeding in the performance. Structuring practice to have spacing and interleaving of models for concepts, going outside of your comfort zone, and getting feedback with reflection allows you to learn quickly and gives confidence for the performance. Combining the Responsive Performance State with properly structured practice will make you have a performance plateau breakthrough, moving onwards and upwards in your learning and performing!
Next Actions
Now that you know how to break through your performance plateaus, here are some questions to consider:
Have you experienced a performance in the Reactive Performance State? How did you feel during the performance and what was the outcome of the performance?
Have you experienced a performance in the Responsive Performance State? How did you feel during the performance and what was the outcome of the performance?
Do more of your performances happen in the Reactive or Responsive Performance State?
If more are Reactive, how will you change to the Responsive Performance State?
If more are Responsive, how do you get yourself into the Responsive Performance State?
For individual practice sessions or groups of practice sessions:
How do you use spacing and interleaving?
How do you go beyond your comfort zone?
How do you get feedback quickly and reflect on your feedback?
Let me know your answers to any of these questions by completing a message in the "About" section of this website; I would love to hear from you!
Notes
[1] The word “flow” is chosen purposefully: When you are fully immersed in a challenge just outside your comfort zone, you can reach a “flow state.” This idea of a flow state was created and popularized by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi; for more information, check out the book Flow or the work of the Flow Research Collective.
[2] Some may argue full-contact sports (American football, rugby, boxing, and others) require you to “play angry” and be extremely aggressive, using the emotions from the Reactive Performance State to play well. However, I would use caution when getting into the Reactive Performance State; these emotions can easily overwhelm you, causing you to commit unnecessary penalties and make poor plays. My American football coaches taught us to play with aggression but stay within the feelings from the Responsive Performance State, leading us to many great performances.
[3] One example of having people who care about you comes from a professional golfer named Tom Lehman. Tom had a rough start to his professional golfing career, spending time on the lower-level professional golf tours before making it to the highest level — the PGA Tour. Tom’s turning point came “in a tiny, pea-green hotel room in Japan. He had been playing like hell on the Asian tour and he and his wife, Melissa, were down to their last few thousand dollars. That night, for the first time, he opened up to Melissa. He told her how he felt like a failure and that he feared she wouldn’t love him anymore if he continued to shoot high scores. Melissa almost laughed in his face. She could’t believe that Tom though her love for him depended on his golfing ability, and Tom couldn’t believe that it didn’t. That evening transformed his career. From that point forward, he knew he didn’t have to play well to be loved, which feed him emotionally become the star he did” (Newport, p. 274).
References
Agarwal, P. K., & Bain, P. M. (2019). Powerful teaching: Unleash the science of learning. Jossey-Bass.
Belcher, N. (2022, February 18). Learning, fast and slow. Medium. Retrieved March 18, 2022, from https://betterhumans.pub/learning-fast-and-slow-a364bf384c6c
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2008). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. Harper Perennial Modern Classics.
Ericsson, A. (2017). Peak. Vintage.
Fried, J. (2022, February 10). Getting better vs. feeling better. Hey World. Retrieved March 18, 2022, from https://world.hey.com/jason/getting-better-vs-feeling-better-6b025acb
Hanson, R. (2015). Hardwiring Happiness. Random House USA.
Magness, S. (2020, June 17). Growth comes from discomfort. The Growth Equation. Retrieved March 18, 2022, from https://thegrowtheq.com/growth-comes-from-discomfort/
Newport, J. P. (2001). The Fine Green Line: My year of adventure on the pro-golf mini-tours. Broadway Books.
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